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I’m mostly into folk and rock/alternative rock but I really enjoy a wide variety of music. I guess the most attractive thing in a song to me is a good beat.

Though in terms of favorite artists: Sufjan Stevens hands down.

One for the lighter political stuff in the main chatting category that people would be happy with, and another for the heavier stuff in either it's own category or in a category with other, generally heavier stuff that could be ignored/blocked out by those that don't want to see it.

Also I vote for a writing stuff channel, but this might as well be just a formality considering the fact that I did suggest it.

Because at the moment it looks like you, and other people are looking at this as 'guilty until proven innocent'. While I'm looking at it as 'innocent until proven guilty'. And like I said, I see a lot of hypotheticals and potentials, but no definite proof. I'm not meaning this as an attack or anything, I'm just saying that's what it looks like from my Point of View.

I haven't had any conversation with Mythcreant about this, I can't claim to be speaking the exact truth, or saying what they want me to say. But what I can say is what I see and why I don't think it means that Mythcreant is Zdimensia.

First up, the formatting. We're not the only community on the internet, and so just because what we see as unusual formatting here, does not mean that it is a mark of a specific user, heck if I actually knew how to do it on here, I'd be using that bar a lot more too. Why? Because I know of several communities I am in, or have been in where the use of that bar is not only not unusual, but seen as perfectly normal. Mythcreant could have come from one of those communities, or another one like them that uses the bar like that and just used it in their posts.

Secondly the IP address, which has been covered by other people. It doesn't offer any proof, only that Zdimensia posted from the same building/area as Mythcreant on one of their accounts.

Thirdly, the logs. So first of all, with respect to the whole Name of the Wind opinion thing, I decided to look up Name of the Wind reviews on Google, and I found this: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/305264406 which, I think you'll find does indeed correspond with a lot of what Mythcreant is saying about the book, and the main character in particular. I haven't read all of the comments on the blog, so the only thing that I can't find is where someone says Kvothe is based off a D&D character, but at the same time from reading the review I could see where it was coming from.

With the introduction and the questionings of what Bram did I see an inquisitive newbie who's just asking because they want to know, and this is then further matched when they say about bits of PPC knowledge that aren't common knowledge, after all what's wrong with a bit of wiki diving? I know I do it from time to time too. The comments on Zdimensia being autistic and that potentially being the reason for the communication troubles is not a opinion held by a small group of people, it's a widely accepted fact that people who are on the autism spectrum can have problems with communicating, so what is wrong with going "oh they're autistic, that could be why they had trouble communicating" when it is a commonly held view and fact. Just because Zdimensia's alts said it doesn't mean that everybody who says it is one of Zdimensia's alts.

Now with respect to the changing stories of how well Mythcreant knew Zdimensia, if you knew someone who'd been banned or barred from a community would you openly mention it to them when you first came in and wanted them to accept you? I know I certainly wouldn't. From how I would act in a situation like that, what Mythcreant did, is perfectly normal, as people keep digging and digging reveal more and more of the truth to try and keep them happy and to let them know the truth, because Mythcreant could have easily lied and said "No I don't know her, it's just unlucky." But they don't, they reveal the truth because in the end they feel like they need to. And as to Zdimensia being more and more of a problem with Mythcreant as a mediator, well we've seen what happens otherwise, how many times has Zdimensia tried to get around the ban while hiding behind falsehoods and lies? How many other failed attempts do we not know about? How do we know that Zdimensia won't try and try again, whether we block Mythcreant or not? I'll say this. Mythcreant has provided a credible story with enough back up and support if you look for it, which is not something that Zdimensia has ever done in the past that I am aware of.

I accept that a lot of the above does not offer definite proof, but I am also aware that it, for the most part, can provide an alternate point of view when it comes to Mythcreant and their actions. Even in the best case scenario it is an unfortunate amount of coincidences and similarities between a banned user and a newbie, that could under a certain light been seen as the newbie being the banner user trying to get around said ban. If more evidence comes to light that could change my view on this case, then obviously I will review it and potentially change my status from there. But with all the evidence that we have at this moment, after I have looked through it, and done my research on it, I would say that we do not have enough evidence to say that Mythcreant is Zdimensia, and so the ban that was placed upon them is both unfair and unjust. I am not saying that they are definitely innocent, merely that we do not have enough evidence to definitely say they are guilty. And, if we are a community that can deliver justice, as I and others believed we should be, then that lack of evidence would mean that Mythcreant is innocent until proven guilty.

Novastorme

And a suggestion- there are currently three mods total, only two of whom are regular visibly active. We could use more- at the moment, it feels like I'm always on call and only rarely have backup. This is not a good way to mod- as we're discussing the role of mods, we should also talk about how many there should be.

I generally listen to Jpop and video game ost. At one point, I listened to mashups from soundcloud one after another.

This is actually the second Warhammer 40,000 version of "Big Iron" to which I've listened.

Proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFRa0KZsGhc

One thing I've been learning over the past couple of years is that everything can be political in nature. Politics affects all of us, and it affects some of us more directly than others. Trying to ban all politics risks ignoring a crucial part of (at least some) people's lives, and I don't want to be part of a community that refuses to care about its members in that way.

Besides, the PPC is supposed to be a bit broader than just laughing at bad fan fiction. Ideally, we'd help each other write good stories with complex characters and worlds. Nobody's tried to talk about politics as it relates to writing fiction to my knowledge, but we don't want to discourage people from asking questions about writing. We should be doing the opposite.

Have one of my own shed feathers and a complimentary kit of Spikes!

Welcome (again)!

If it helps, I wasn't much of a writer when I joined up either.

- Tomash

I'll just stand by the way the story kept changing being extremely dubious if not outright unbelievable, then.

~Neshomeh

1. (optional) People pointed out the possible ban evasion to me.
   1. Once I had suspicions, I checked with someone else whose opinions I trusted (it probably would've been several people if some of them hadn't already pointed it out to me first) to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
   2. I called it. The community enforces the Constitution, after all.
   
   - Tomash

Because it was possible that Mythcreant wasn't zdimensia, I pointed them at the Nameless Admin, who unblocked them. This was a good decision. Having an innocent newbie trapped behind someone else's block would have been bad.

However, the IP match combined with the subsequent zdimensia-like patterns of behavior (which several people agreed existed), in my opinion, combined to make a case that our initial assumption that Mythcreant was not zdimensia was an error, and so the block was reapplied. That was also a good decision.

- Tomash

To start off, I'd like to make some distinctions. I'll define "light politics" to be things like "[Country] is debating a net neutrality bill.", "[Country] just [legalized/banned] [gay marriage/weed/...]", "There's an election on/Here's some results." and so on. It probably also includes things like discussing political ideology and who you're thinking of voting for, so long as it's not straying too far into heavy stuff.

Another type of content under discussion is what I'll call "heavy stuff", which is usually also political in nature. Heavy stuff encompasses things like shootings, bombings, police brutality, and so on, and probably the follow-on discussion.

From what I can tell in both this thread and elsewhere, light politics isn't something we appear to be objecting to. It seems to fall into about the same category as "[Media company] just [announced/cancelled] [thing].". Therefore, I don't think we should really do anything about them, other than clarifying that if you have someone asking for a conversation/posting (especially about this sort of stuff) to stop or be moved elsewhere, that needs to happen.

In contrast, heavy stuff is a more divisive topic. Some people want to talk about it. Others plain don't want to see it. So, how do we resolve this? I'd like to point to an analogous situation - NSFW (or near-NSFW) badfic quotes. Some people want to see them, others (like Silenthunder) don't. The solution we hit on there is to rot13 that sort of thing so people trying to avoid it can do so.

I again propose the same solution. Heavy stuff (which someone needs to try and define more concretely, please) should be posted under rot13 with a warning, and, for lack of a better term, "heavy" discussion about it (discussion that's still referring a lot to the heavy thing in a concrete way) should also stay under rot13.

I again oppose labeling a chunk of the Discord "politics" or "politics OK" because we tried that and it blew up in our face. If anyone has reasons they think it'll be different this time, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

tl;dr: rot13 for tragedies and other heavy stuff, and back off on politics when people ask you to

- Tomash

It may mean any of the following:

• zdimensia used Mythcreant’s computer while she stayed with her.
  
• zdimensia brought her own computer, but used Mythcreant’s router/modem to connect to the internet (what we see is the router’s address, not a specific device within the local network).
  
• While pretending to be "Makarra", zdimensia used a public internet access point different from all access points she used before that, and she now uses the same access point pretending to be "Mythcreant".
  
• Before she became "Makarra", zdimensia switched to a different provider to get a new IP address, and she is still using that.
  
• Something I don’t think of.

Although having been an IT person for many years, I’m not very tech savvy concerning the internet; some other tech person may correct me.

HG

Having thought about this overnight, here's what I see as the main concern that needs to be addressed:

Are the mods doing their job to make the Discord a good, comfortable place for all* members?

This is not the first time I've heard concerns that, in the Discord, saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time can get you ostracized, shamed, ridiculed, insulted, or otherwise punished, with no way of knowing what to avoid ahead of time. I can think of several members in good standing off the top of my head with such concerns, actually, some of them for quite a long time. This is especially bad if "the wrong person" is a mod with the power to kick or ban anyone they don't feel like dealing with that day.

So, what I propose is to take this opportunity for a sort of performance review of the current mods and state of the Discord. I could set up a brief Google survey with a few fairly standard questions: do you enjoy being in the Discord, are the mods doing their jobs, if not why not, what would you improve, etc. I think I would require a username to help filter out any opportunistic trolls, but I'm pretty sure the results could be kept private, and I'd present the data free from any identifiers.

First, though, an important question: What is the job of the mods? We'll have to agree on that before we can usefully discuss whether they're doing it or not.

I believe the job of a mod is to ensure that the Discord is a safe, fun environment for all* members. They have a duty to first ensure that everyone knows the rules, then to ensure that the rules are fairly and consistently enforced, always assuming good faith when possible. I believe this requires a certain level of detachment, so that one's personal biases and moods are managed such that people you disagree with* are not treated differently from people you do agree with.

What do the rest of you think? Is a review a good idea? Is a survey a good idea? Is that definition useful? Let me know.

~Neshomeh

* Those in neither flagrant nor repetitious violation of the Constitution.

The Nameless Admin does have the power to, in clear cases, just block people without a full vote of some sort. For example, if someone start spamming ads for online pharmacies, we block the IP, delete the posts, and move on. There's no need to hold a full vote about it.

Now, in this case, we have someone, first of all, who was using zdimensia's last known IP address. This had to be unblocked by the Nameless Admin to allow Mythcreant to post, which was, to my understanding, done because they might not be zdimensia.

However, it became quite clear that this person was zdimensia (for another datapoint, here's some very zdimensia-like views on making people keep talking to you). In my view, the fact that we were re-applying an IP block on what was almost certainly a user who had been banned with full constitutional process (several times) puts us right at the edge of "we don't need another full vote on this" territory.

I'd like to note that, if it hadn't been for the whole "previously blocked IP" thing, a somewhat longer wait (probably not a fully counted vote unless people were objecting, but more taking a day or two to make sure people had had a chance to see the post) would have been in order.

So yeah, for me, this situation is almost one that requires a full "let's wait to make sure people could get their views in" discussion, but, because of the very strong evidence, isn't one.

- Tomash

And I'm pretty sure their explanation that they have Zdimensia's IP because Zdimensia was staying with them is patent nonsense. Like... that would mean Zdimensia gave Mythcreant her computer for some reason, right? Tech-folk, help me out here.

Also, the conversation is not over, as DJ made clear in her post. What would you like to say on Mythcreant's behalf if you don't agree they're another sockpuppet of a banned user? Persuade us.

~Neshomeh